Saturday, September 17, 2011

Meanwhile in a little village in Spain.....

I wanted to let my readers know what I have been doing since my last post and what could be a better opportunity than the day horror hostess / movie star / cult siren / pop icon Cassandra Peterson a.k.a. ELVIRA a.k.a. Mistress of the Dark celebrates her 62nd birthday.

Since I already did three posts about her I just wanted to use the opportunity to remind you and if you haven't already read then, just use the " Elvira " tags to get to the posts.

Besides Elvira there are three more celebrity birthdays Today : exotic swimsuit model Jewel Santini ( 27 ) who I'm not sure if I mentioned her in a CASTING THE GIRLS OF X - MEN post for the role of Psylocke

Stacy Kamano ( 37 ) who was on the BAYWATCH HAWAII tv show

and singer Anastacia ( 43 ) who is very popular in Germany but probably mostly known outside of it for the song EVERYTHING BURNS on the first Fantastic Four movie soundtrack.

So, when I'm not busy finding excuses to put hot babes on the blog what am I doing in the meantime ? To tell the truth I wanted to write something Yesterday but because - for some mysterious reason - internet explorer can't connect to the internet anymore and firefox plays haywire with my layout I kept putting it off.

It's now five days since I came back to the old ghost town called El Castell de Montornes and I'm still not finished with setting up shop. On Thursday I found most of the comics I left last time I was here. At first I thought I had only left some issues of BIBLIOTEKA MARVEL - LA PATRULLA X by John Romita Jr but I found a ton of other comics ( the first 6 HULK issues by Ed McGuiness, some GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY issues by Paul Pelletier, some FANTASTIC FOUR issues by Brian Hitch, the spanish issues of SUPERMAN / BATMAN by Carlos Pacheco, the Power Girl issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD by George Perez, LEGION OF THREE WORLDS 1 also by George Perez, etc. and a lot of comics I got from the last Salon del Comic de Barcelona I could attend ) but while looking for a certain unread comic I saw the day before I found them all buried under tons of other stuff while the drawers where they had been previously were almost empty.

So I spent most of the day putting all paperbacks and books on the bookshelf and putting all the rest into the drawers again in the right order.

Yesterday we went to Tarragona, which is the next big town after Torredembarra because they have a MediaMarkt and other mediastores where we bought some Playstation stuff for my brother and a Corte Ingles where I got some new jeans and boxer shorts which isn't easy at my size. And it's even more difficult to find this clothes in Germany.

I thought I could do a post but instead I was busy downloading two episodes of FRINGE I missed because I was on the road on Monday and some episodes of the ninth season of SMALLVILLE. They are now showing them in Germany on RTL II but I already missed the one from this week because they showed it at 03.00 at night and I'm not sure if I can see the next ones. Right now I'm going to sleep pretty early - at least at my standards which means between 01.30 and 02.00 at night - and if they continue emitting it that late I'm going to miss them as well. I know that downloading stuff from the internet should cause me a bigger moral dilemma but sometimes it's the only way to watch episodes you have missed.

And yes, I tried watching them online but it's just too big of a headache. And in the case of DR WHO it's the only way since the german network gave up after the second season.

I haven't gotten around to watch any of the episodes yet because while I was downloading them LA SEXTA was showing two new episodes of HUMAN TARGET which for some reason is called HUMAN SHIELD here in Spain. I know that they changed the character of Christopher Chance in the series and that he's acting more like a bodyguard who shields his clients than the original DC comic character who made a target out of himself by becoming the client - but can we please keep something from the comic ? At least the title ? It's bad enough that the name of the original creators Len Wein and Carmine Infantino is buried almost at the end of the credits.

Speaking of HUMAN TARGET, my brother got the first season on DVD ( of course he bought it here since the german version is probably censored ) and as I re - watched the episodes before coming here I noticed two things.

First : the character of Christopher Chance is introduced rather gradually to the audience, revealing bit by bit per episode thus keeping us interested without boring us with too much detail. When all the missing pieces of the puzzle are revealed in the last episode it's one of the best payoffs.

Second : it may sound like a cliche but the show was much more ass - kicking when it was still a boy's club. I don't know if it was just a coincidence that the new female members of the team arrived at the same time the episodes became less daring. Maybe that's what happens with every tv show when it is successfull and the second season is planned. Somebody decides that there has to be more eye candy and they want to smooth out the edges a bit. But that's all speculation anyway.

Now some people may find it strange that I of all people am complaining about eye candy on a tv series. And it's not really a complaint as I say the more hot babes on one show the merrier. No, I'm not really complaining because both new members of the cast are great actresses, really bring more energy to the team dynamic and they ARE hot. Don't get me wrong, HUMAN TARGET is still a darn good show. But if you compare the first season with the second one you just can't help noticing that the first season is just more basic and it's more actionpacked.

Two other things I have to mention on the subject : the new intro music is just awful, as there seems to be a rule that the music for the second season has to be an utter violation of the original one.

And also : what the f - word happened to Armand Assante ? In the final episode of season one he makes his big entrance and he's all ready to ride into the gates of hell with Chance and Guerrero and in the next episode of season two he's nowhere to be seen and he's not even mentioned.

They just continue as if he never was in the previous episode and in my opinion they lost a lot of potential there. The producers of the show probably didn't want to pay for him on another episode but they left the whole thing between Christopher Chance and his former employer hanging in the air without any kind of resolution. I know I was totally : " What the f - word ! Did I miss an episode ? " and even went on the internet to check the original american episodes. If you want to know one way to damage a good tv property this certainly helps.

As for going to the comic convention in Leganes, I have checked the train schedule and the tran ride alone from Torredembarra to Madrid would take me almost 3 hours. Since I don't have any relatives in town ( at least ones I know ) I would have to go there and return on the same day. That would mean the first train I could catch would leave at 09.00 and I would arrive at Madrid around 12.00 with at least one additional hour to reach Leganes. For the ride back I had to at least leave at 16.00 to catch the last train to Torredembarra, which would limit my window of opportunity to 3 hours to go to the convention, find out the schedule of the signings and manage to be one of the firsts in line to get a drawing of Carlos Pacheco. So, unless some miracle happens don't expect to see me at Leganes this month.

Since I'm in Spain I also checked a few german websites and you may have already noticed that YO DIGO NO - one of the links on the blogroll - finally has some new posts. The first I want ot mention is this one about CHAMPIONS LEAGUE OF AMERICA a new webcomic by Enrique Machuca, Pepe Díaz y Jose Aguilera. They plan to update every Wednesday and I'm not sure but I think I have seen the promo picture somewhere else.

They also have a pretty funny video. My favorite parts : by the writer who read WATCHMEN and didn't understand it AND the artist who kept eyeing KINGDOM COME until the comicshop owner threw him out.

The other one should be especially interesting for my german readers since it's about a trip to Berlin . Well, at least the ones who understand spanish.

What I find interesting is that everybody seems to like german food ( beer, sausages, bread, sweets ) but there are some german customs that seem strange to foreigners. I mentioned some of them but I have been told that I'm an extremist in this sense. Well, it seems other people find certain things as alien and weird as me.

This traffic light is not for people who do acrobatics on their bikes

It also seems that people always see the comic Mekka somewhere else except in their own counrty. And that there seems to be an urban legend outside of Germany that DC and Marvel don't want to be published by the same company ( in Germany both are published by PANINI ).

I also found another post about a trip to Berlin from a spanish blogger who was pretty smitten by the town. Since I haven't been to Berlin myself I don't know how accurate it is but the few people and comic artists I have met so far all had a bit of an inflated ego like Berlin is the center of the world or something. What's funny is that in one of the comments somebody comments that Berlin reminded him very much of Spain during the 80s - for all those readers that don't believe me that Germany is a few years behind other countries. Another fact that isn't mentioned in Germany much is that the Nazi uniforms were designed by Hugo Boss.

German version of famous spanish comic MORTADELO & FILEMON

Since I already mentioned the spoof of the new Justice League comic let's talk about the real thing. The first issue of what's supposed to be one of DC's future flagship titles is already out and the reactions are less than extatic to say it diplomatically. As I haven't had the chance to read it myself ( from all I've heard the better option might be to wait for the trade ) here are some opinions by other people. Most of them have spoilers so if you plan on reading the new nunber 1 you should read this afterwards.

I don't know what it is but there are always people in the comic industry who see their own inability to do certain things as a sign that it is impossible. When clearly it is not. I myself have heard people make the most farfetched claims that I know aren't true. You can't do a Justice League story that has every member in it. You can't make a german superhero comic. You can't tell a good story for an adult audience in 5 to 8 pages. Just because you can't do it doesn't mean it's imposible, dude.

Speaking about how to write ( or how not to write ) good comics Scott Beatty has a wonderful expose on 6 stories that changed how I read and write comics and having read 5 of those 6 stories I can attest that he has managed to select really great examples.

And speaking about examples here are a few more reviews about the new Justice League and other new DC books which give the books different ratings. Of course most of them are filled with spoilers so beware !

So I will hopefully catch up on my FRINGE and SMALLVILLE episodes this weekend. As I won't go to Leganes I have a bit more spending money and as I have already gotten the stuff for my brothers I will probably go to Barcelona on Monday or Tuesday. This time I have more time to visit FREAKIS and NORMA COMICS.

As I have already mentioned it, here's the video to show that, yes, Anastacia IS on the official Fantastic Four soundtrack. And they even have a Fantastic Four comic with a John Byrne cover in the video.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hey – nice weblog, simply looking around some blogs, seems a fairly good platform You Are using. I’m at the moment using Drupal for a number of of my sites however looking to change considered one of them over to a platform very much the same to yours as a trial run. Anything particularly you'd advocate about it?

Well, I don't have that much experience with different platforms since blogger is the first one I tried and so far I have stuck with it.

The thing is, blogger is pretty user - friendly which is important for somebody who doesn't understand much about computers like myself. And it let's me do what I want to do without being too complicated.

When picking a platform you have to think about what you want to do on your blog, which features you will need and which you wont. Easier is sometimes better. My brother tried to persuade me to switch to another platform but all the extra features it had were things I didn't need anyway.

It's really cool if you can publish more pictures in some cool slideshows or stuff - but if you only want to do a simple commentary blog with some pictures for the reviews or to make it easier to read......you don't really need it.

Especially if you have to transfer over 300 posts.

The only negative thing I can say about blogger is that they don't have as many layouts as they used to have. I changed the layout of the blog for Halloween and afterwards I couldn't change it back because my original template wasn't available anymore.

Oh, and blogger always tells me to try out the new blogger interface. I tried it once and it was just awful - at least for the kind of posts I do.

About Me

Working stiff at day, secret crimefighting blogger at night I was born into a world I never made. I always loved comics and even wrote and drew some. Together with my brother who is much more interested in making comics we even self-published a comic called POWER FREAKS that is infamous in Germany. Due to financial troubles and artistic differences sadly there has been only one issue so far. Being more of a reader than a collector of comics I always read the foreign versions of the american comics what led me to start this little blog. If you have any comment ( or want to send me some review copies ) please drop me a line in the comment section or send me an e - mail.